Delivered April 8, 2012
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In the Bible the Easter story takes place mostly in a graveyard. It has to do with a missing dead body and then appearances of the dead person to his friends. It is really kind of strange, which is probably why our culture has sanitized it. American business doesn’t know how to market something like this. So they have tried to repackage it as having something to do with an Easter bunny, Easter baskets and Easter eggs. Or we talk about banalities like butterflies and flowers blooming. Some folks try to remake it into a Spring equinox celebration (the way people make Christmas into a winter solstice celebration), but that is tough to do because Easter often falls nowhere near that day. Consequently Easter is one of those days when if you aren’t religious, there is not much to do at Easter.
Easter still attracts people to church. Not as much as Christmas my more but more than an ordinary Sunday. I am grateful for that and happy to see people, especially when families come together to worship. I know that people come to worship on Easter for different reasons and from different perspectives. That is what we are going to be looking at this morning. Today we are going to look at how three different people approached the tomb of Jesus on the first Easter morning: the disciples John, Peter and Mary Magdalene.
I. First we will look at the apostle John. He is the one who wrote this gospel and refers to himself in the third person in this manner throughout the gospel as “the disciple whom Jesus loved” or “the other disciple.” Mary Magdalene, the most prominent of the female disciples, came to the cemetery very early. She got close enough to the tomb to see that the stone had been rolled away from the entrance. She may have even looked inside and seen that the body was missing. We don’t know that for sure, but she concludes that Jesus’ body is missing. Verse 2 says, “Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him.”
At this shocking news Peter and John ran to the garden tomb. John, being the younger of the two, outruns the older man, but waits respectfully at the tomb entrance for the elder apostle before going in. While waiting, John took a peek inside the tomb but did not go in. Verses 4-5 say, “So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in.” Peter arrives and immediately enters the tomb and sees the burial clothing and how it is all positioned, but he did not see Jesus anywhere. Then verse 9 says that John went into the tomb and saw the same thing as Peter, but it says “and he saw and believed.”
Peter and John saw the same evidence in the tomb; perhaps Mary did also. They all saw that Jesus’ body was missing and the burial cloths lying in the tomb, but only John believed. In this story John is the BELIEVING DISCIPLE. What did he believe? He believed that Jesus had risen from the dead, even though the next verse makes it clear that “For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead.” John believed without seeing the risen Christ and without knowing that the OT Scriptures taught that the Messiah was to rise from the dead. This is really a remarkable thing! Why did John believe this when no one else did? It had not entered into the mind of Mary Magdalene. Her conclusion drawn from the evidence of empty tomb was that someone had stolen the body. Peter, as we will see, was not willing to jump to any conclusion yet. But John immediately believed.
How do we account for this? I think that God revealed this truth to John’s heart. There is a scene earlier in the gospels where the apostle Peter made his famous confession of faith in Christ. He proclaimed at that time: “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus replied to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.” God had revealed this to Peter. I think that John knew that Jesus had risen from the dead in the same way that Peter had known that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God. God revealed it to him. I believe that many people today believe in Christ and his resurrection in the same way. I might go so far as to say that the only way that we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and has risen from the dead is if we have been convinced by the Holy Spirit. I don’t think the physical evidence alone can convince us of the resurrection.
I subscribe to a weekly email newsletter published by Skeptic magazine. The editor is the well-known atheist Michael Shermer. I enjoy the articles because they are often true. For example, last week’s edition was on debunking the evidence for UFOs, and I agree with them on that. I think UFOs are a bunch of malarkey. (Now don’t start sending me emails about how real UFOs are.) In fact I agree with Skeptic magazine on many issues, which the editors would probably be very surprised at. But a couple of months ago they had an article on the resurrection of Jesus. Gary Whittenberger argued that the most reasonable explanation for the early Christians belief in the resurrection of Jesus was that it was a mass hallucination experienced by the disciples. He actually argued a convincing case. He related how today people who have lost loved ones often report seeing their dead loved ones. I have had people tell me ghost stories like that a well. But I don’t think that is what happened on Easter. Not because I can produce a more objective rational explanation, but because the Holy Spirit has convinced me otherwise. Of course skeptics would dismiss the testimony of the Holy Spirit as imaginary, and I understand why. But I cannot dismiss the Holy Spirit.
When it comes down to the wire, we can explore all the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and not be able to come to a conclusion. After all, the resurrection of Christ happened 2000 years ago! Talk about a cold case! We cannot possibly expect find any physical evidence of the resurrection. You can visit the site of Jesus tomb in Jerusalem today, and you aren’t going to find anything. You can scientifically examine all the relics of the Roman Catholic Church having to do with Christ and not find any evidence. Even the Shroud of Turin (which purports to be the burial shroud of Jesus) has been proven to be a fourteenth century forgery, regardless of what the television documentaries say. There is no physical evidence remaining for the resurrection of Jesus.
The evidence is all based on the written accounts of the gospels. We have to decide whether or not they are reliable. Skeptics can come up for all sorts of reasonable theories for why these documents can’t be trusted. On the other hand biblical scholars make a convincing case for the reliability of the gospel accounts. If you don’t want to believe in the resurrection, you can find many reasons and theories to support your case. If we keep an open mind we can also find lots of literary and historical reasons to believe in the resurrection. In the end this approach doesn’t convince anyone. It comes down to something much more personal and spiritual. John believed in Jesus resurrection, even though the only evidence he had at the moment was an empty tomb, because God worked in his heart to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. I think he works in people’s hearts today in the same manner. He might even be working in your heart today in this way.
II. The second person I want to look at is the apostle Peter. I called John the believing disciple. I will call Peter the CAUTIOUS DISCIPLE. To understand Peter’s perspective at the tomb on Easter morning we have to remember everything he had been through the last few days. He was Jesus’ right hand man - one of the three leaders of the apostles: Peter, James and John. He was the first to recognize Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God. He expected Jesus to be acknowledged as the Messiah by the Jewish people, and that seemed to be happening on Palm Sunday. Peter pledged that he would always be at Jesus’ side no matter what, even if it meant dying with Christ.
At the Garden of Gethsemane when the temple authorities came to arrest Jesus, Peter tried to defend him with the sword. He even wounded the servant of the High Priest. But he was told by Christ to put his sword away. As Jesus was taken away by the temple guard, Peter followed at a distance and waited in the courtyard while Jesus was on trial. There in the courtyard Peter was asked three times if he knew Jesus, and three times he denied Christ. Then the rooster crowed; Peter realized what he had done and wept bitterly. Then his Lord was convicted, whipped brutally and crucified. But Peter was too ashamed and afraid to even show his face at the cross.
Peter had been on an emotional roller-coaster ride. Jesus was dead and buried, and Peter thought the whole adventure of that last three years was over. Then early on Sunday Mary Magdalene came knocking on his door with the news that Jesus’ tomb was open and his body missing. He ran to the tomb to see for himself, and found the tomb as Mary had said, with the body gone and the grave clothes still in the tomb. What was Peter to think? It is difficult to get into someone else’s mind, but I think that Peter was being cautious now. He had been through a lot in the last couple of days. Now he didn’t know what to think about Jesus, so he was taking it slow.
People today are in this same situation. There are a lot of people who have been through tough times with religion and the church. They have been burned. They have been disillusioned. They have been disappointed in church people and church leaders. They don’t know what to think about church, Christianity or even Christ any more. I have met a lot of people like this during my ministry. In fact I have been one of them. I have been burned. I was burned out, and I left the ministry intentionally for a year. I took a year Sabbatical, and ended up being away from ministry for a year and a half. During that time I reexamined everything about my faith - every doctrine, every belief. I examined carefully everything from my belief in God to my faith in Christ. I came out of that year convinced of the gospel – and in fact I am a much stronger Christian for having been through it. Although I am much more wary of religion than I ever was before. I am still much more cautious than before about everything religious.
Perhaps some of you are in this same situation. You have been through an emotional or spiritual rollercoaster ride when it comes to your faith, your relationship to the church, or even your belief in God. You don’t know what to think any more, just like Peter did not know what to think when he came to the tomb that Easter morning and saw it empty. Maybe empty is the best word to describe your feelings. I am here to tell you this morning that it is alright to feel this way. Easter was about the empty tomb before it was about the risen Christ. In fact many scholars think that Mark’s gospel originally ended with only the empty tomb and no resurrection appearances. All the Easter accounts in all four gospels start out with a period of time when there is just the empty tomb. The empty tomb is space to think, space to question, space to ponder, space to explore the possibilities. I hope that this church is also that type of place – that here you would feel free to be cautious like Peter. I also hope it is a place where eventually your questions will be answered in the risen Christ. But that might come later. At the empty tomb we do not hear any exclamation of faith from Peter, as we do from John. Peter at this point did not see and believe. He just saw and wondered what it meant.
III. The third person at the tomb in John’s account of Easter morning was Mary Magdalene. She is the most important character in this account. I call her the LOVING DISCIPLE. I could call her by other titles. I thought of calling her the weeping disciple or the grieving disciple or the waiting disciple. But I have decided to call her for this message the loving disciple. That is because the reason she weeps is because of her love for Jesus. The reason she grieves so strongly for Jesus is because she loved him so much. The reason she lingers at the tomb is because of her love for Jesus. After Peter and John left the grave to go back home, Mary remains at the tomb. That decision made all the difference. If Peter and John had not been so quick to go home, they would have seen what Mary saw. But they couldn’t wait around for no reason. They did not see the point of sitting around crying, so they returned home. But Mary stayed at the tomb, and she wept.
After a while she took a second look inside to see again where Jesus had lain; this time the tomb was not empty. This time there were two angels sitting where Jesus’ body had lain. “They said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” Notice that Mary did not yet believe that Christ had risen. She still thought he was dead. She was simply grieving the loss of her Lord that she loved so much. The scripture says, “14 Now when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.”16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him,[a] “Rabboni!” (which is to say, Teacher).
She sees the risen Lord. The reason she got to see him whereas the men didn’t was because she waited. And the reason she waited was not because of her faith but because of her love. There is a message here for us. Love is more important than faith. The apostle Paul said in the faous love chapter of I Corinthians 13, “So faith, hope, love abide, these three. But the greatest of these I love.” Such love will lead to faith. This morning we are celebrating the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That is unbelievable to many people. Even good church people struggle with the idea of a physical resurrection of Christ. That is alright, as long as you love Jesus. That is what matters. I believe that if we love, then the faith will come. Mary did not believe Jesus had risen when she waited at the tomb. She was not even thinking about such a possibility. It was so far from her thoughts that Jesus stood right in front of her and she didn’t recognize him. But she loved Jesus, and so when he called her name, then she knew him.
It is the same with us. That is why I do not try to argue anyone into believing in the resurrection of Christ. I figure Christ can convince people that he is alive, just like he did with Mary. I don’t need to do that. The Holy Spirit can convince people that Christ arose like he did with John. But I do encourage you to love him. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart and to love others. If we love God we will love his Son. And if we love his Son, then one day we will turn around and hear him call our name. Then like Mary, we will know that Christ is risen.
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